Towards the end of the session everyone else was playing funny buggers to try and find a slipstream and it meant that my last lap of the session was the only proper flying lap I could manage. We still managed to secure fifth on the grid and, when you look where the other drivers with ballast were, I think we could be very happy with that.
None of the top three were inside the top 15 on the grid and, looking at the grid following qualifying, I was fairly certain that coming away from Silverstone with second, or at least a very close third, in the standings was achievable.
I was really comfortable going into race day, and race one started brilliantly. I could see fairly early on that I wasn’t going to catch Tordoff or Chilton in the Motorbase Fords, so I decided to look after the tyres and hold on for a fairly safe-looking third. The throttle body had other ideas however, and meant that the car went into limp home mode. I was having to reboot almost every lap and it was embarrassing…
Having decided to park the car and concentrate on the second race, we started from the back for race two, and having worked up to 14th by the midway point I was feeling pretty good and working towards a potential reverse-grid situation. Unfortunately the power steering then dropped out and I found myself dropping back down the grid, and losing more and more voltage as each lap passed. Holding on for 22nd at the line, it was another case of “what might have been”.